


I Am A Knife

by fistfight



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Asexual Character, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 20:59:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12141024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fistfight/pseuds/fistfight
Summary: Charlie finally starts to accept it.Mac, after getting too involved, now kind of wishes Charlie was back to chasing the waitress.Well... maybe it's not that bad.





	I Am A Knife

Mac walks into Paddy’s a little after seven. The first thing he hears is the familiar squawk of Dee’s voice, which sort of kills the buzz he’d been enjoying from the six pack he’d had before he made his way to work.

 

“Charlie, could you maybe, I don’t know, do some fucking work?” she calls from behind the bar, with her painfully grating voice.

 

“Well actually,” says Charlie, who’s sitting at a table, drinking a beer, “I have a date tonight, so, no, Sweet Dee, I cannot.”

 

Shit, right, Charlie had a date with the waitress. Mac had only forgotten since he hadn’t shut up about it for the past couple of days and he’d started to subconsciously block it out of his long-term memory.

 

Dee, apparently, is just as exasperated as he is with the whole thing. “Well, she’s not here yet, so -”

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Charlie interrupts, “I can’t get this shirt dirty, it’s my nice one.”

 

The shirt in question is an oversized (and badly stained) Hawaiian button-up that had probably belonged to Mac at some point. Hard to tell, though, since Charlie’s wearing that dirty military jacket over it.

 

Well, whatever. Maybe it’ll be marginally more successful than his other attempts.

 

“When is she supposed be here?” Mac asks, looking at the clock on the wall. “Getting kind of late.”

 

Charlie squints at the clock, which is weird, because Mac knows for sure he can’t read analog time. “Oh, um, well, she was supposed to be here at seven, but she seems to be running late, so it’s _really_ important I’m ready on time.”

 

Nobody has anything to say to that.

 

Especially not Mac, who knows enough about Charlie to know he’s not a hundred percent confident he’s going to be able to pull this off. Maybe it was a weird fever dream he conceived for him and dragged everyone else into. That’d be more realistic, anyways.

 

Nobody says anything at all to Charlie, passive-aggressively shunning him for his refusal to do Charlie Work, until another hour passes. He’s not getting a word out of Mac until he cuts the bullshit.

 

Charlie, for the past thirty minutes, has been switching tables and sitting positions, holding uncomfortable “sexy” facial expressions until someone catches them and he moves again.

 

Dennis, after getting one glimpse of a bastardized Blue Steel too many, asks, “You sure you got the right day, man?”

 

Charlie waves his hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, I talked to her today, she said see you tonight, so that would be today, so it’s right.”

 

“And you weren’t supposed to go to her house?”

 

“Nah, nah, dude. She said if I tried to go to her she’d call the whole thing off and wouldn’t talk to me.”

 

“Yeah…” Dennis says, nodding slowly.

 

“Just gotta wait for _her_ ,” Charlie points in the direction of the coffee shop, “To come to _me_.” Charlie points to himself.

 

Mac sighs very loudly, but doesn’t say anything when Charlie gives him a look.

 

He’s going to keep his mouth shut this whole night, if he has to, because something about Charlie’s insistent obsession with this woman pisses him off more than it should.

 

“There’s no way she’s coming.” Dee says to the two of them, when Charlie’s out of earshot.

 

“No way,” Mac agrees. “Should we tell him?” he suggests, but he’s already standing up.

 

“What? No!” Dee whispers, putting an arm on his shoulder like she’d be able to pull him back, “Let him just fall asleep here or something.”

 

“Dee, that’s a health code violation.” Dennis says.

 

“Since when have you ever given a shit about that?”

 

Dennis doesn’t say anything. They go back to watching Charlie, but it’s just as boring and annoying as it’d been for the past two hours.

 

Charlie keeps switching tables and drinking beers at more and more frequent intervals, bouncing his legs whenever he sits down.

 

Every time he moves Mac can feel the tension in his body rising, his teeth clench a little or his fists ball tighter and usually he can handle Charlie’s incessant fidgeting, but watching it for _hours_ is really taking a toll on his mental stability.

 

Dee and Dennis seem to be having a fine time watching him, laughing about how he loses his shit when the door opens and then tries to act natural when it’s everyone but the waitress.

 

But for Mac, the hours creep by. Nights at the bar didn’t always go fast, but slow ones took forever. This kind of second hand torture was something else, though.

 

“Dennis,” Mac says. “Listen, dude. You gotta tell him. Tell him she’s like, still in love with you, or something. I can’t watch this anymore.”

 

“Okay, first of all, no, and second, it’s actually pretty funny.”

 

“Fuck you, dude! It’s, like, boring as shit. Just tell him we’re closing, or something, I don’t know.”

 

Dennis takes another look at Charlie, who’s sitting at a table surrounded by empty bottles, his unwavering gaze focused on the door.

 

“I guess it’s kind of sad now.” he says.

 

Dennis hesitates before he gets up and clears his throat.

 

“Charlie, it’s getting late. Maybe you should just go home, dude.”  he calls.

 

Charlie doesn’t move his eyes, but says, “What? Nah, I’m waiting for the waitress.”

 

“It’s eleven already. Just… We’re gonna close soon, anyways. Just talk to her tomorrow, or something.” he looks back to Mac for encouragement. Mac nods, but this isn’t going as well as he’d hoped.

 

“Nah, man, she has to come, you know? She’s a good person. She’s gonna make it.”

 

“I don’t think so, Charlie.” he says.

 

Charlie doesn’t say anything.

 

Dennis turns back around. “Not happening, Mac. He’s too far gone.”

 

Charlie is now taking swigs from the beer bottles, searching them out for drops he might have missed before. It hurts to watch, not in a kicked puppy way, as much as a trainwreck. Spilling booze on himself and visibly shaking, he’s the epitome of pathetic.

 

Mac can barely fucking take it anymore. He’s overwhelmed by weird stress from this whole situation. This is probably the most awkward sequence of events any of them will have to live through, each second grating though slower and slower.

 

Charlie pipes up suddenly, “I mean, like, maybe she forgot, but she should still be coming, it's only been a few hours, and she just-”

 

He cuts him off, suddenly, voice raised to almost a yell, “Charlie, would you shut up for a second? She’s not coming, okay? She stood you up, dude! Get over it!”

 

The already quiet bar goes painfully silent at Mac’s outburst.

 

He swallows and looks over to Dennis, who has covered his mouth with his fist and is looking away from him, directing his eyes instead to the floor. Dee starts running a damp rag over the bar, like cleaning was something she did normally.

 

Mac looks back, and watches as Charlie gets up from the table he was sitting at, pushes his chair in, and silently walks over to the door. He turns around to face them, but his eyes aren’t focused, his gaze goes straight by their heads and to wall at the back.

 

“I’m gonna go home,” he says, tone even and flat.

 

Mac and Dennis watch as he flings the door open and sprints outside.

 

Dennis, amidst the stares of scattered bar patrons, calmly walks over to close it.

 

“Huh.” he says, walking back.

 

“Maybe we should go check on him.”

 

“You can, Mac. Someone’s gotta watch the bar.”

 

“Why don’t you go, and I -”

 

Dennis interrupts him, “You suggested it, man. C’mon, just make sure he doesn’t try to kill himself or anything.”

 

Mac sighs. He can see a hypothetical Charlie, unable to tie a noose properly and trying to overdose but just getting high because of his inhuman tolerance.

 

“I’m sure he’s fine,” he says, but goes to get his jacket anyways.

 

-

 

Mac doesn’t even get inside the building before he finds Charlie, who he hears before he sees.

 

“Fucking cats!” echoes from the alley, as he walks by.

 

Jesus fucking Christ.

 

There’s no way Mac is wading through animal shit and rotting cans of food for this.

 

“Charlie! Get outta there, dude. C’mere.”

 

A cat screeches. “Mac?” he calls.

 

“Of course, buddy. You think Dennis would come?”

 

Never mind that Mac barely made it here without turning around.

 

Charlie emerges from the alley looking like he’d been living there for a week, covered in filth and grime, messy hair and a frantic look in his eyes.

 

“It’s all gonna be okay, dude,” Mac says, slowly approaching him. “Look, why don’t you go inside, go to bed, and everything will be better tomorrow, right?”

 

Mac reaches for Charlie’s arm, but he flinches away.

 

“Frank’s up there.” he mumbles. “Got some girl.”

 

“Did he kick you out?”

 

Charlie shakes his head. “I just… heard them.”

 

Ew. That’s fucking gross.

 

“Well, they won’t be there all night. You can go in, and, uh, wait outside for her to leave. It’s fucking cold out here, dude.”

 

“I don’t care.”

 

“C’mon man, I hate seeing you go through this shit. You wanna get drunk about it?” As a sensible afterthought, he adds, “Tomorrow?”

 

He doesn’t respond, and Mac watches as Charlie paces around the front of his apartment, back and forth in front of the steps, like there’s something physical stopping him from going inside. He looks wild, mumbling to himself with hand gestures, walking so fast he almost stumbles every time he turns on his heel.

 

“Charlie?” he prompts.

 

“I don’t fucking get it, Mac. You - you don’t get it either, but I just don’t fucking get it. My brain just - it’s not working, it’s not getting it.” he bursts out.

 

Mac presses his lips together and nods. That feeling from before is creeping back, clawing around in his stomach and pulling on his intestines.

 

Charlie rakes his hands through his greasy hair, opens and closes his mouth a few times before continuing.

 

“And - and, she’ll sleep with you, and Dennis, and even fucking _Frank_ , and she won’t even hang out with me, or talk to me, and -” Charlie abruptly stops his rant when realizes his desperation was becoming increasingly obvious. He sniffs, wipes over his face with his sleeve, then starts slower, “I don’t even wanna fuck her, man. I just. I love her, y’know? I don’t get what I’m doing wrong. I don’t  - I don’t get what’s wrong with me.”

 

Charlie sinks down to sit on the concrete steps and buries his head in his knees. Mac sees him shaking and wonders if he’s crying or if his substance-abused body is just spasming.

 

There is so much he wants to say right now, so much he wants to explain about Charlie and the waitress and about himself, how they’re all fucked up and it’s probably all their own faults but they shouldn’t feel bad, but he doesn’t say anything, just sits down next to Charlie and watches the stray cats strut around the trash bags on the sidewalk for a few minutes.

 

“I don’t know how to fix myself.” Charlie finally says. His voice is muffled but Mac can still hear that it’s worn out.

 

“You don’t have to change, dude.” He says, and means it, mostly, but sounds painfully fake, like one of those stupid self-love videos he watched in Health class in middle school. The more he has to say to Charlie, to more out of place he feels.

 

Charlie’s head snaps up to look at him, and the movement in his peripheral makes Mac’s eyes turn to meet his instinctively. Charlie looks pathetic, eyes red and watery and his skin hallowed by the yellow street light.

 

“Nothing I’ve been doing since - for like, my whole life, has worked. Nothing ever works, dude. I’m doing something wrong here, and like, if I could just figure it out, Mac, I could be - I could change.”

 

Charlie keeps staring at him, with intense eye contact, like he was waiting for Mac to have the answer, for him to present the One Definitive Wrong Thing about himself that he could reflect on and repair overnight. It makes Mac uncomfortable.

 

This kind of emotional gay bullshit isn’t for him. It isn’t for Charlie, either.

 

“You’re fine, Charlie,” he says, and stands up. He cracks his back and looks down at Charlie, who hasn’t looked away from him. “I’m gonna go home.”

 

Mac walks away to let him deal with his shit.

 

-

 

Charlie shows up to work the next afternoon as though nothing ever happened. The rest of the gang acts the same way, because they’re good about forgetting about shit like that. Or not really caring. Either one.

 

They all do their jobs and fuck around and it’s all like it should be.

 

Except Mac still feels awkward around Charlie. He left something unfinished outside of his apartment the night before, like he should have said something else before he left, or given him a pat on the back.

 

Charlie had never really looked at him like that, he never made that kind of intense eye contact, and he always, _always_ said what he needed to say. The quiet is what he can’t forget.

 

But it’s too late to fix now, and Charlie doesn’t seem to be having the same troubling thought process. Hell, he’s probably forgotten about it, knowing his memory. Dennis would probably say he subconsciously repressed the memories or some bullshit like that, but Mac knows Charlie is actually just stupid as hell.

 

He grabs a drink and watches Charlie poke around the holes in the walls with a pool cue.

 

“Get any rats yet, Charlie?” Dennis calls.

 

“Just getting ‘em riled up, right now. Soon they’ll get angry and run out to attack, and that’s,” he pauses to make another jab, “That’s when I make my move.”

 

-

Mac decides he’s never going to bring up last night to Charlie until it’s a distant memory. A week or two in the future, it’ll be really funny for everyone and Charlie probably won’t even have a coherent memory of it.

 

He can’t even make it that long, unfortunately, when fucking Charlie comes up to him after work and says, “Do you still wanna hang out and get drunk?”

 

No, Mac doesn’t. He can barely remembers himself saying anything, but he is absolutely said that because he was confident the answer would be a solid _no_.

 

There’s a slight chance, though, Charlie has just suddenly made this request with no connections to their previous discussions.

 

Mac doesn’t want to take that chance. That, and the huge possibility that Charlie gets so drunk he actually remembers all of his pent up emotions and starts unleashing them onto him again.

 

“Not today, man. Some other time, though.”

 

“Aw, c’mon, man, please? Frank’s out for the night and he just restocked our booze yesterday.”

 

Mac thinks that if it was just restocked yesterday then it’d already be halfway gone, but freeze beer is free beer, and the Pilgrims didn’t build America by rejecting the Indians’ invitations to get wasted with them.

 

“Alright, Charlie,” he says, “Let’s do it, man.”

 

-

 

What Mac tells himself when they get there, is that this is only gonna suck as much as he lets it.

 

He downs three beers in twenty minutes and so does Charlie, and if he’s lucky, they’ll both be blackout drunk before this next episode of The Simpsons is over.

 

Who is he fucking kidding? Mac is the unluckiest bastard in the world. As soon as they hit the commercial break, Charlie’s already back on his bullshit.

 

“Can’t believe the waitress forgot about our date last night. Some people, you know?”

 

Mac runs a hair through his hair and groans. “ _Jesus_ Christ, dude! I didn’t come here to talk about your fucking feelings, alright? Listen, she stood you up, that’s the end of it.”

 

“Sure, dude, but we don’t _know_ that.”

 

Mac doesn’t have anything to say to that. He tries to start drinking beers at a faster pace.

 

He knows it’s getting pretty good when he has to get up to take a piss and he’s stumbling so badly over the trash on the floor he almost falls over on his way to the bathroom.

 

When he gets back, he grabs a beer, and tries to plop down onto the couch, but sort of loses his balance, somehow, and ends up falling into Charlie, a little.

 

Charlie doesn’t push him off. “You good, dude?” he asks instead.

 

“Yeah, man.” Mac gets out, because having his head on Charlie’s non-muscular little shoulder is actually pretty comfortable and he’s starting to get pretty fucking drunk.

 

In the nice way, too. He’s not angry or stressed, just living in a harsh buzz, where everything is fuzzy and makes his cheeks hot.  Not tired or anything, just happy. Cheap beer does that to him.

 

Charlie laughs at something on screen and Mac moves his head to look up at him. His nose almost touches his beard, but he tries not to breathe in because he knows how little Charlie washes his face, let alone any of the hair on it. From here, he can see all of his freckles. They’re nice. Without the beard, he could have a girl’s face, almost.

 

“The waitress could just be a lesbian.” he says, hoping it’ll kind of comfort him.

 

Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe Mac solved the mystery.

 

Charlie rolls his shoulder so Mac will get off. “What? No, dude, then why would she agree to go on a date with me? I mean, she’s gotta be bi at least.”

 

“She can’t be bi, bisexuals are fake gays, man. Plus, you look like a girl, so she’s probably just in denial of her sexuality.

 

Charlie wrinkles his nose. “Alright, so first, a big _no_ to both of those things, but especially the second. I do _not_ look like a girl.”

 

“Yeah you -” Mac pauses to burp, “do. Yeah you do. You got like, the freckles, and the uh... and stuff.” he gestures vaguely to Charlie’s face as he says all this, hoping it’ll get the point across.

 

“Freckles are just fucked up skin, dude. Plus, we totally used to make fun of that ginger bitch in high school with them, so I don’t get you point.”

 

Mac huffs. “It’s like you’re fucking pretty, or something, dude. Like, as your bro, I am telling you dude to dude that you could be an alright woman.”

 

“I don’t think so, man.”

 

Charlie drinks more beer.

 

Mac does too.

 

“Like,” says Mac, “I’d kiss you.”

 

“What?”

 

“All I’m saying,” says Mac, trying to get his words back into coherency, to keep his train of thought on its tracks, “Is that if I could do it, y’know, kiss you, then so could the waitress.”

 

He’s not sure if Charlie, intoxicated or not, has the mental capacity to comprehend his drunk reasoning.

 

“But,” says Charlie, and then takes another swig, “You didn’t kiss me.”

 

Mac puts his beer down onto the garbage-covered coffee table, on top of an old porno mag.

 

“It doesn’t fucking work like that, Charlie, it’s not like, if I do… something, then she’ll also do it, dude!”

 

“I mean,” he pauses, “We don’t know that.”

 

Well, he’s got a pretty fucking good point there. There really is not scientific proof saying whether or not what he and the waitress have in relation to Charlie is balanced out by God or something.

 

Charlie is looking back at the T.V., but when Mac presses his lips on the corner of his mouth (he was going for the cheek, but kind of missed) he turns his head back slowly, like he’s in a daze. His eyes are open but so are Mac’s and they stay that way while Mac goes in again, this time right on his lips.

 

It’s short. It’s to the point. Mac’s not really a kisser, and when he is, there’s usually a lot of biting. But here, he’s just proving a point. Not trying to get anything out of Charlie, that’s not what this is about, not what he feels like.

 

“Oh,” says Charlie.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Thanks,” he says. Charlie smiles around the lip of his beer can.

 

Mac’s smiling, too.

 

-

 

The next morning, Mac wakes up, tasting the awful smell of Charlie’s apartment in his mouth instead of his usual morning breath.

 

Fuck.

 

Charlie, next to him, still looks out cold.

 

Well, if he’s lucky, he’s the only one that remembers last night.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is my favorite Always Sunny Pairing, which sucks, because it's tragically unpopular.
> 
> Hope you enjoy the chapters to come, number two is already in the works.


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